DREAMS AND DECISIONS

Matthew 2: 13-23

December 30, 2001

After the emotional high of Christmas Sunday and Christmas Eve with all the services, the family gatherings, the traveling and traditions that fill the week, where do we go this week? This is the Christmas season now; the last month has been Advent – getting ready for the Messiah. Now is the time to celebrate; yet culturally we are already past Christmas and on the New Years. But just as there is joy at the anticipation and birth of a child, life goes on after the birth and the family begins to adjust to the new life and new demands.

The Gospel reading for today is from Matthew 2. I invite you to take your Bible or a Bible in the pew in front of you and turn to this passage. We are going to look at it in more detail than usual today. Let me give you some basic material about Matthew’s story of the birth. First, if you just read Matthew, you come to the conclusion that Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem prior to the birth. The magi appeared some time after the birth of Jesus and Mary and Joseph were living in a house. In light of the massacre that happens and the age mentioned there, Jesus could have been as old as 2 years. Our text today takes place just after the magi have left to return home.

We have three separate stories in this reading today that conclude the birth narrative. Matthew 3 begins with John the Baptist and Jesus as an adult. First, God is the main actor and Joseph is the one who responds. Mary and Jesus are the passive presence. Look at 2:13 and you will see "an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream…" Look at 2:19 and you see the same thing, "suddenly an angel appeared in a dream." Turn back to 1:20, from last week’s text, and you will see the same phrase. Three times in this birth narrative, Matthew uses the imagery of an angel in a dream as the means to speak to Joseph.

How does God speak to you? Have you sensed God giving you direction in your life? In biblical times, dreams were understood as a means by which God spoke to people. Dreams were considered powerful. Have you ever had dreams so vivid that you wake up, or force yourself awake? You find yourself in a sweat, heart racing. I understand that your body reacts to a dream as if it were as real as the actual thing happening. The body can’t tell the difference.

How does God speak to you? One possible way is through the reading of Scripture, listening to it and taking it into our hearts and minds. Another possible way is through prayer and meditation when we are in tune with God and our mind comes to clarity about something, and we can say, "Yes, that is what I need to do." Another way in which I have sensed God working is through a group process, people working together for a common goal. One way in which God has spoken to me is through other people. As I was finishing seminary in Enid, Oklahoma, I wanted to move back to the Northwest, yet no church was open at that time that felt anywhere near right. I prayed that I would go where God wanted me to go. I turned down opportunities in Nebraska and Kansas, Texas and Missouri, waiting for a call from the Northwest. But it didn’t happen. Kathy was 7 months pregnant and I was getting anxious for a job. Then a professor of mine took me aside and told me of a church that would be right for me – a church in northwest Oklahoma. I respected his greatly and I listened to his comments. We ended up taking that church. Looking back on it, there is no doubt in my mind that God was working through Prof. Howard Huff. Are you open to God speaking to you in various ways? Willing to go a different direction? We are at that point as a congregation where we need to be open to God speaking and God’s direction.

You will notice in your Bible that each of these three stories – escape to Egypt, massacre of the infants and return from Egypt to Nazareth – end with a statement about fulfilling prophecy. The first one comes from Hosea 11:1; the second one comes from Jeremiah 31:15. The third one, about being called a Nazorean cannot be found in any scripture anywhere; even Matthew makes it a general reference when he refers to "prophets" in plural form.

The purpose of all this for Matthew is that he is trying to make the point that Jesus fulfills Scripture, that Jesus’ birth and coming completes what the Jews had been anticipating for centuries. Three other times in these opening chapters Matthew quotes Old Testament prophets (1:23; 2:6, 3:3). Matthew, more than any of the other Gospel writers, wants to make sure that Jesus is the Messiah by finding Old Testament prophet passages that fit and explain Jesus. Sometimes they are a real stretch. Like when a speaker is introduced and her background and education and experiences are shared to give her authority, so Matthew makes sure that Jesus is well connected to the prophetic line so that there is no question that he is the Messiah.

There is another underlying theme in Matthew that is present in these passages but not easily recognized. That theme through the Gospel is that Jesus is the new Moses. Just as God used Moses to lead the people out of captivity to the Promised Land, just as God delivered the Covenant through Moses, including the 10 Commandments and the Torah, so Jesus is the new Moses through whom the New Covenant is delivered. The escape to Egypt to avoid the sword of Herod parallels Moses being hidden in the bull rushes of the Nile in order to escape the slaughter of Hebrew male children by Pharaoh. Moses led the children out of Egypt, so Jesus goes to Egypt in order to identify with and symbolically lead the people to the Promised Land. In Matthew 5, Jesus goes up on the mountain to give the Beatitudes and teachings, just as Moses went up on the mountain to receive from God the Commandments. The Gospel can be divided into 5 parts, representing the 5 books of the Torah.

All this is a message to the original readers of the Gospel that Jesus is the new leader, the person through whom God speaks the New Covenant. Moses was the central figure for Israel; Jesus is the central figure for the New Covenant.

Matthew is building his case that Jesus is the Messiah. Through dreams God speaks and Joseph responds; the prophets of old are fulfilled in the life and happenings around Jesus. Instead of Pharaoh it is Herod; instead of Moses, it is Jesus. God is watching out for the one who is to lead God’s people.

All kinds of events shape our lives. Some of those events we have control and say-so over; many of them we do not. All we can do is react and make the best decisions we can. Life may not go as we would like or vision, but that doesn’t mean that God isn’t at work in our lives. Mary and Joseph planned on living in Bethlehem and raising Jesus, but their lives were changed. They fled to Egypt and lived there for a short while; they then headed home, but Joseph decided it wasn’t safe to return home, so they went to a nondescript little town of Nazareth in Galilee to start their family life together.

We look back on 2001 and see what all has happened. Our world has changed in many ways. We can’t see the whole picture, but we can rest assured that God is watching over all. Life may take some twists that we didn’t expect, but God is with us. Sometimes we have to move, go a different direction, and be transported in order to see God’s guiding hand and presence. Our task is to be open and sensitive to God’s direction in our lives and make decisions that honor God.